


This is not a love story

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, Partner Betrayal, basement fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-29
Updated: 2010-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:12:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It struck me that it's been almost five years since I wrote a Spander fic, and I wondered what sort of Spander I would write if I tried now.</p><p>Apparently, this kind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is not a love story

1

Xander doesn't fidget even though his head is killing him and his left ear itches where the blood is drying. He knows the element of surprise is a very weak weapon, but it's all they have, and Xander doesn't want to break his charade of unconsciousness without good reason. Somewhere close by, Spike talks to Willow, and every time she answers him, every time she cries, Xander is glad because that means Willow is still alive.

"She just left," Spike says. "She didn't even care enough to cut off my head or set me on fire. I mean, is that too much to ask? You know? Some little sign that she cared?" He sounds like he's talking to a good friend, like he thinks Willow is going to make O-neg slushies and declare them King and Queen of the "I Hate Drusilla Club."

Xander shifts very minutely, a tiny redistribution of his weight, and is nearly overcome with nausea that starts somewhere near his knees and rolls up over his body until it centers in his throat, a hot sick lump that he desperately breathes around until it fades. He grays out for a moment after that, Spike's voice gone tinny and strange, and when he can hear again, Spike is saying, "I haven't had a woman in weeks."

Xander opens his eyes. Spike holds Willow to him, his face buried in her neck, her hair fanned out over his cheekbone. Xander tries not to notice how beautiful she is like that—fragile and afraid, her eyelashes dark with tears, her pale skin already marked where she strains against Spike's hands. Spike pulls back from her and licks his lips. Xander can't remember ever being this afraid.

Spike says, "I know what I smell, you cheating little hussy. That's not werewolf stink on you, oh no." He looks at Xander and grins, something feral and angry and sharp enough to cut. "If you're just giving it up, Red, give some sugar to Spike."

"No!" Xander says and struggles to sit.

"No?" Spike laughs. "No? Oh, that's rich." He throws Willow to the floor, and she makes a terrible sound on the concrete when she falls. "You volunteering then?"

Xander scrabbles on his hands and knees to where Willow has rolled into the fetal position, sobbing into the damp and the dirt. She's bruised and shaken and her elbows are skinned, but she isn't broken. Xander stands slowly, his arms extended for balance, and when he's finally upright, he looks Spike dead in the eye. "You do what you want with me, but you leave her alone."

Spike is in his personal space so quickly that Xander wonders if he blacked out again, if he's missing time. "I always do what I want," Spike says and fists his hand in Xander's hair, yanks his head back.

Spike tastes like whiskey and blood, smoke and copper. He doesn't kiss. He takes Xander's mouth. "Like that, don't you?" Spike says and bites down on Xander's bottom lip with human teeth until it bleeds. "So sweet."

Xander shudders in Spike's grip. The edges of his sight begin to curl, and he isn't sure if he's going to cry or throw up or pass out again. The sound of his zipper dragging down shocks him into clarity. Spike's hand is cold and rough, and Xander gets hard pretty much the second Spike touches him. Willow makes a wet sound like she's choking back sobs, the counterpoint to Xander's ragged breath and the harsh rasp of Spike's hand on Xander's cock. Xander closes his eyes.

"Oh, no. You look at me, pet," Spike says and digs his free hand more tightly into Xander's shoulder. "You look at me." Xander obeys.

His orgasm takes him by surprise in its intensity. He would fall if Spike weren't holding him in place. Spike licks his hand clean, slowly and theatrically, never breaking eye contact with Xander. Willow gasps, and Spike yanks Xander's jeans down to his knees, pushes him onto the floor beside her.

Willow says frantically, "Now, now, hold on! I'll do your spell for you, and, and, and I'll get you Drusilla back, but, but there will be no 'having' of any kind with anyone. Alright?" Her jaw is clenched, and her lower lip is quivering, and not once does she look at Xander on all fours with his ass in the air.

Spike shrugs and kicks at Xander's calf. "Alright. Get started. And, if at first you don't succeed, I'll kill him, and you can try again."

 

 

2

"Don't think I've forgotten what you taste like, pet," Spike says and flexes his arms until the ropes creak.

Xander hates the heat that pools in his belly, the awful twist of anticipation in his gut. He swears he can _feel_ Spike's voice on his skin when he talks like that. "Shut up, Spike."

The basement is almost completely obscured by darkness. In the red glare of his alarm clock, Xander can barely see the vague shape of Spike across the room, the grayish shroud of the ropes that bind him.

"You don't really want that."

Xander turns over the clock and lets true dark take the room.

"You want to remember, same as I do." Spike pitches his voice low and husky, but Xander can still hear the smirk in it. "You want to remember that fear, how good it was, how sick and sweet, how alive it made you feel."

Xander's hand creeps down to the waistband of his boxers, slips under. He waits, listening for the hiss of Spike's zipper, for the rustle of fabric, and then he wraps warm fingers around his cock.

"You know she watched," Spike says, and Xander's breath hitches. "Your little witch watched me toss you off, and when you were done, oh, she was wet." Xander can hear Spike's hand stroking, back and forth, back and forth. "I could smell her."

Xander grips himself almost painfully, trying to recapture the way Spike's hand had felt on him and failing.

Spike says, "And how funny is that? The most erotic moment of your miserable existence is a wank from William the Bloody."

Xander tries not to moan. He's so close, and he knows Spike is too. He can hear that catch in Spike's voice, the little breaths he doesn't need to take.

"What do you think would have happened if Red hadn't distracted me? You ever think about that?"

_All the damn time_, Xander thinks and comes on his belly in a hot mess.

In the morning, Spike's jeans are crusted over with come like they always are, but neither of them mentions what they do in the night when no one can see.

 

3

The sky is brilliant with moonlight.

"I made a promise," Spike says, his hands clutching at earth, at the dew-soaked grass around Buffy's grave.

Xander grips Spike under his arms and hauls him to his feet. "You can't stay out here, Spike," he says. "The sun's coming up before long."

"Then let it come!" He reels out of Xander's grasp, checking himself on the cold marble of Buffy's headstone. He slides down it and draws his knees up to his chest.

Xander wants to hit him so badly he can almost feel his knuckles bruising. "You don't get to be that selfish. Dawn needs you right now."

Spike looks up. The moonlight makes him look unreal, like he's made of glass and ice and other things that shatter. "She's better off without me."

Xander can't help himself then. The first punch splits Spike's lip, blood welling in the corner of his mouth, and the second knocks him flat on his back. Xander straddles him and fists both hands in Spike's jacket. "I know what you said to Willow back in high school. How you wished that Dru had killed you when she ran out, how true love means you die when it's done." Xander shakes Spike so hard his teeth rattle. "Well, real life's not like that. Everybody dies. Everybody leaves. And you keep hanging on for whoever's still here." Xander loosens his grip on Spike's duster, smoothes down the lapels. "Dawn looks up to you. If she lost you now, so close to Buffy, I don't know." Xander's voice cracks on Buffy's name. "And I don't know how in the hell we're supposed to keep her safe without you."

Spike blinks back tears. His eyes are so blue. Xander leans in before he realizes what he's doing, and then they're kissing. Spike still tastes like blood, sharp and acrid, and this time Xander is in charge. He kisses Spike slowly, his tongue ghosting over Spike's swollen lip, his hips grinding down into Spike's.

"Let me," Spike pants into his neck. "Please." He rolls Xander onto his back and unfastens their pants, and when he takes both their cocks into his hand and strokes, Xander almost comes right then.

_How goddamn wrong is this?_ Xander thinks. They're fucking on the Slayer's grave, on his best friend's grave, and she's not even cold in the ground.

"Do you feel that?" Spike says, his voice raw. Xander doesn't know why he's asking. This is the only thing Xander has truly felt since Buffy jumped.

When he gets back to the apartment, Anya is asleep. Xander showers, and then he lies on the edge of their bed watching the steady rise and fall of her chest in the waning moonlight.

 

4

Xander doesn't think he's capable of feeling shame any longer. He hears himself in stereo, on repeat, and he sees the hypocrisy. He truly does, but that doesn't make what he said any less true. And how fucked up is that?

"You let that evil, soulless thing touch you," Xander had said to Anya. "You wanted me to feel something? Congratulations, it worked. I look at you ... and I feel sick. 'Cause you had sex with that."

He slams open the door of Spike's crypt, the bones in his wrist vibrating with the impact. Spike doesn't look surprised to see him in the least. "Took you long enough, pet," Spike says, and Xander knows him well enough to see that the bravado in his voice doesn't quite reach his eyes.

Xander doesn't talk. He lets his fists speak for him. It feels so unbelievably good to watch Spike's face purple over with bruises.

"What's this then?" Spike says on his knees, swaying, a laugh threaded through his words. "It's good for the goose if it's good for the gander."

Xander kicks him, hears something in Spike's chest crack under his boot. "I'm so fucked up, you piece of filth, that I never deserved her in the first place. All these years, you messed with my head, made me want things, made me do things…"

Spike giggles. "Is that what you're telling yourself now?" He braces himself against the wall and stands, walks right up to Xander until they're nose to nose, close enough that Xander thinks he can smell Anya's perfume on his skin. "You wanted it. You wanted me. That first time, I'll grant you, that wasn't your idea. But everything after was all you, mate. All you, Xander."

Xander's name in Spike's mouth sounds wrong—sexy and dirty and like everything Xander's ever done to screw up his life. It goes straight to Xander's cock.

"At least she had the decency to keep her mitts to herself until you two were finished." Spike puts one hand on Xander's chest, right over Xander's heart, his long fingers curling up to Xander's collarbone. "Not like you. Not like those nights in your sodding basement getting each other off, is it?"

Xander shakes his head and takes a deep shuddering breath. "I never touched you."

Spike leans in. His lips are cold on Xander's throat. "You're a bleeding coward, love." He licks a long stripe up Xander's neck, nips at his trembling jaw with blunt teeth. "We've been fucking for years, and you know it."

Xander swallows down bile. He feels so much like he did the first time Spike touched him—helpless, enraged, disgusted—and that turns Xander on more than he wants to admit, even to himself. Xander shakes his head again, and Spike's eyes narrow. He looks angry for the first time since Xander barged into his crypt.

"I seem to remember taking a tumble with you once upon a time on the . . ."

"That was different," Xander interrupts, and he hates the gravel in his voice. "Don't you say her name. That was different."

The anger fades from Spike's eyes, and he just looks tired. "Alright then."

When they kiss, Spike tastes like Anya's cherry chap-stick, smells like her shampoo. Xander puts his hands in all the places Anya's have been, fits his mouth to all the skin that she has kissed, until he feels as if he's drowning in them both.

Spike is tight, and Xander isn't cruel, but he isn't gentle either when he slicks him up. It almost hurts to fuck him, a painful friction that Xander clings to as he moves inside. Xander thinks that after this time—naked in Spike's bed with Spike spread before him, all those terrible bruises blooming on pale flesh—he won't be able to lie to himself anymore. When Spike comes, he shows his true face. He pants out Xander's name through a mouthful of fangs and clenches down on Xander's cock until Xander can't hold his own orgasm back any longer. Xander is glad Spike lets the gameface slip. For once, he knows exactly what he's doing.

 

5

"Liberace called," Xander says. "He wants his necklace back."

Spike snorts.

"I wanted to say thanks, for Caleb. For saving my life."

"Don't be, love." Spike reaches out and traces around the edge of Xander's eye patch. His finger trembles. "I was too bloody late to the party as usual."

Xander steps in closer and Spike's hand falls to his shoulder. "I always wanted to be a pirate."

"Wanker," Spike says. In a house full of Slayers, full of family, full of women they have loved and love still, Spike licks into Xander's mouth, sweet and tender and with none of the heat that Xander has come to expect from him. Xander knows that years from now, whenever he thinks of Spike, this is the moment he'll remember first.

Spike pulls away a little and starts to speak, but whatever he was going to say is lost when Dawn calls them from upstairs. "Get it in gear, guys," she says. "I think we're ready to roll."


End file.
